Declan McDaid should be back in the Dundee team to face his old side Ayr United this weekend, manager James McPake has confirmed.
The former Ayr United winger has been sidelined since the Dark Blues beat Dunfermline last month and has been “missed a lot”, the Dens Park boss admitted.
“Declan’s back and has trained very well,” said McPake. “He’ll certainly be involved on Saturday.
“We’ve missed him a lot.
“He’s dynamic and has been a real threat. He’s kick-started his career again after showing a lot of potential when he was young.
“He’s great to work with and we’re delighted to have him back.”
Whether Josh McPake plays for the club again remains to be seen.
“His loan is up on the 13th of January and we’ll be having a conversation with Rangers,” said the Dundee manager.
“The timing of his injury has been unfortunate.
“If Josh had been fit he’d have got starts, with Declan’s injury. That would have been a natural one. It was hard to put Josh in when Declan was doing so well.”
Dundee will attempt to complete an Ayr hat-trick tomorrow and leapfrog their play-off rivals into third in the Championship.
“Saturday was a disappointing one,” said McPake. “It was a chance to get level with Inverness.
“That’s out of our heads. We’ve worked hard this week and come Saturday we need to be much better or we’ll give ourselves no chance in the game.
“We need to be a lot better at everything.
“Of course it’s another big game against a team hoping to be in the play-offs.
“They’ve got players who can hurt you. He (Mark Kerr) has chopped and changed things but they’ll be optimistic after playing well at Dunfermline on Saturday.
“If we’re not at it we’ll be punished more than we would be against most teams.
“We’ve beaten them twice this season and we want to do it again.”
Jamie Ness should also be available.
